Chicago Flyhouse Blog

We like challenges at Flyhouse. When Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch, Colorado (a suburb of Denver) came to us wanting a motorized curtain system for their church, we found a solution that went beyond their expectations.

Tucked away in the suburbs of Chicago, Saint Viator High School is a Catholic secondary school with approximately 1,000 students. The building, originally established in 1961, remained virtually untouched over the years until the 1990s when a series of building upgrades took place.

In recent years, another round of upgrades took place. As part of the upgrade, Saint Viator High School wanted to improve the acoustics of both their choir and band room. While the rooms were functional and provided the needed resources for the choir and band, the sound quality needed a slight adjustment.

In order to accomplish this, Flyhouse installed three manual acoustical drapes on the walls of the rooms. Also as part of the acoustic assistance, a manual bi-part, 25oz thick Charisma Rose Brand acoustical curtain was installed. The curtains hang roughly 10’ above the finished floor and had to be adjusted during installation due to an already installed HVAC system in the room.

While Flyhouse wasn’t around for the first rehearsal after the installation, we are certain the sound quality was impressive.

Every summer, Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay, Florida creates an entertainment atmosphere for everyone needing an escape from the minutiae of life. One aspect is their Kinetix show which incorporates modern music, pyrotechnics, stunts, and performer flying.

For the last few years, the Kinetix show has had an assist from Flyhouse to make their performers fly through the air with ease. By using our Ziplift 300 series hoist system, performers are secure and can go about their work of entertaining the crowds with no issues.

The $96.5 million, 225,000 square foot multipurpose arena is able to seat 9,500 screaming fans during every game and is home to the largest center-hung video display board (2,400 square foot) in college sports.

As part of the overall construction of the facility, Chicago Flyhouse was called in to install an acoustical baffle system across the entire arena to provide effective sound absorption quality; the installed area required nearly 16,000 square feet of vertical baffles and 50,000 square feet of horizontal baffles. Track and carriers for blackout curtains along with a temporary half house curtain system were also part of the installation project.

To gain access to the installation area, the boom lifts had to maneuver through the lower rigging steel of the entire arena which was a much smaller area than the average installation space for acoustical baffles. This meant instead of the lift boom easily swinging a large swath of area throughout the process, it needed to be lowered down after a few panels were installed and brought back up to the next section.

Even through this small challenge, Flyhouse was able to complete the project and have it ready for the first game of the year.